{"id":115262,"date":"2017-04-11T15:09:26","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T19:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=115262"},"modified":"2017-04-11T15:09:26","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T19:09:26","slug":"gm-quadruples-spending-on-autonomous-tech-to-600m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2017\/04\/gm-quadruples-spending-on-autonomous-tech-to-600m\/","title":{"rendered":"GM Quadruples Spending on Autonomous Tech to $600M"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Chevy Bolt will be General Motors first fully autonomous car when it brings a self-driver to the market in the future.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

General Motors Co.\u00a0is steadily ramping up its spending on autonomous vehicles, expecting to lay out $600 million this year alone on its self-driving vehicle efforts.<\/p>\n

The total is four times what it spent last year, Chuck Stevens, GM chief financial officer, said during a recent presentation to financial automation.<\/p>\n

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Subscribe Now!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stevens said the GM\u2019s effort is being led by Cruise Automation, which GM paid $1 billion for last year. GM also has moved to ensure that Cruise can maintain a start-up culture to meet the rapidly evolving move into automated driving,<\/p>\n

GM, along with other traditional automakers such as Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Renault-Nissan,\u00a0is now considered one of the leaders in self-driving vehicles. In fact, the automaker finished second behind the aforementioned Ford in a recent study by Navigant Research that ranked the makers on their leadership in the autonomous arena.<\/p>\n

The company announced yesterday it plans to launch its first semi-autonomous system, the Cadillac Super Drive, in the 2018 Cadillac CT6. GM\u2019s first fully self-driving car coming to market will be a version of the electric Chevrolet Bolt EV, Stevens re-iterated during his presentation.<\/p>\n

(Caddy going hands-free in 2018 launch of Super Cruise. <\/em><\/strong>Click Here<\/a><\/span><\/strong>for the story.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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An autonomous Chevrolet Bolt EV shown running at the GM Tech Center in Warren, Michigan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stevens also emphasized that Cruise is now a GM subsidiary that has been integrated into GM’s big-company structure so its engineers are free to operate separately and independently.\u00a0It will also be a separate business unit long term and in the future could report its own earnings, he added.<\/p>\n

Cruise’s CEO and co-founder, Kyle Vogt, has “full responsibility for the operational and financial performance of our autonomous vehicle business,” Stevens said.<\/p>\n

Cruise Automation — has a budget and it has been given both short- and long-term financial targets, and it’s monitored \u201cat the highest levels of the organization by Mary, Dan and myself on a very frequent basis,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

(For more on the new Navigant study,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Click Here<\/a><\/span><\/strong>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The support for Cruise\u2019s research will reach roughly $150 million per quarter going forward in 2017,\u00a0Stevens added. GM expects to spend about $150 million per quarter on its self-driving effort in 2017, compared to the $150 million GM spent on engineering and research in 2016, Stevens said.<\/p>\n

The ramp up in GM\u2019s spending underscores the growing importance that the development of self-driving vehicles. Last week, Anthony Foxx, the former Secretary of Transportation, said last week that automated vehicles could start showing up on some streets within five years.<\/p>\n

The $600 million level could also could continue into 2018, Stevens said. The spending does\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0cover the capital costs of developing an all-new vehicle for self-driving, because GM is already producing the vehicle in question: It’s the Chevrolet Bolt EV.<\/p>\n

(Waymo and Bosch team up to put driverless robo-cabs on the road by 2021.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Click Here<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\u00a0for more.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Stevens also re-iterated that GM expects the first self-driving cars will be built for car-sharing and ride-hailing businesses, not for retail buyers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

General Motors Co. is steadily ramping up its spending on autonomous vehicles, expecting to lay out $600 million this year alone on its self-driving vehicle effort: 4x its 2016 total. Find out more at TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20009,"featured_media":112275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115262"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20009"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115262"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=115262"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=115262"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=115262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}